Why does In-Memory feature not support foreign keys?

Question

Why does Sql-Server 2014 In-Memory feature not support primary/foreign key relations? Can anyone explain what the problem with foreign key relationships and in-memory is?

I guess just and only this limitation alone may be a show stopper for 90 or more percent of all Sql-Server customers for usign the in-memory feature. Does anyone know if this will be added in future versions?

Answer 1

Because they had to ship the feature. If they waited until it was complete, we'd still be waiting for it, and all of those customers who didn't need foreign keys (or were willing to sacrifice them temporarily for the performance gains) would never have been able to deploy.

As with many large features with deep roots into the engine (remember the first iteration of ColumnStore? How about the limited surface area in the inaugural version of Azure SQL Database?), the v1 always has a limited amount of features.

They come around later, though. For example, in SQL Server 2016, you will be able to have a foreign key reference to a primary key constraint (but I don't believe to a unique constraint). You can see a lot of the enhancements that will be available in "v2" in the following posts:

• SQL Server 2016 : In-Memory OLTP Enhancements
• In-Memory OLTP - what's new in SQL2016 CTP3
• SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 3.1 is available